WEBVTT - Crimes of Paleontology 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.760 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.120 My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Julie Douglas. And uh, Julie, 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:19.599 you you still take Marta every now and then, don't you? 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.480 The train public transportation system here in New Lanta? And 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.360 uh so, I'm sure you've encountered the various fossil salesman 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:30.880 on there. They're selling bogus fossils. I mean, it's it's 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:32.640 like every time you turn a corner here, somebody with 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:38.400 trying to sell some sort of like diplodocus uh um, vertebrae, iguana, 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.360 don femur, and you know it's all fake, but you 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:43.640 still still people gullible enough to buy, I know, And 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.040 I'm always like, don't do that. That's just a buffalo 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:51.400 wing from Bojangles. Yeah, and the remnants of it. Yeah, yeah, 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:54.400 that because if you go by just what these guys 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:58.320 are selling, most of the fossil record was very bojanglesh yeah. 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.520 And it's and it's warm um and we just know 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.240 that that's not how how China source looked. That wasn't 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.880 their morphology. So no, yeah, you know, and I didn't 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.440 help matters that they threw on like an iguana tail 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:14.280 on the buffalo wing and then tried to say, yeah, 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.959 it's it's the missing link. Yeah, it's a shame in 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.479 the sham. But you know, shim sham. It's a it's 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:23.640 a shim sham indeed, but it's a shim sham that 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:28.160 goes far beyond made up encounters on on on Martha Um. 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.040 Fake fossils are have been going on as long as 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:34.960 we've had real fossils, and it's it's an interesting history 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:38.319 because to a certain degree, you have well meaning people 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:41.520 who just make mistakes, UM, who get caught up in 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:45.360 their passions or or in you know, there the various 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:48.160 timeline they have to meet their ambitions, yeah, their ambitions, 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:50.440 and then you have people who just want to make 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.760 a quick buck and you've got rogues. Yeah, yeah, I 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.600 mean it is a spotty history. Yeah, there there are 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.400 some is we're gonna explore in this this episode. There 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:03.480 are some real characters in uh in fossil history, UM, 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:07.760 who have been just completely without scruples, that have been 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.880 UH pompous beyond belief and have been willing to take 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.360 more than a few shortcuts to get their name in 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.640 the history books. Yeah, and not to just throw stones 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:20.520 at glasshouses here, because I've have to mention a couple 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.160 of modern day hoaxes that we have all fallen under 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:27.400 the spell at one time or another. One is crystal schools, 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.720 right the Yeah, the pre Columbian Mesoamerican like crystal schools 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:35.000 not real at all. So if you bought one, you know, 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:37.200 you should be proud and display it, but just know 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:41.560 that it's it's not an artifact from yesteryear. And in 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.679 the shroud of turrent and that one is a little 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:49.720 bit controversial in well I know, but it's been carbon 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:53.480 carbon dated back to the thirteenth century, right, and recently 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.520 there was some Italian scientists who was able to uh, 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.440 the face imprint, was able to do that with another 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.240 piece of cloth and sort of they look, there's the there, 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:08.040 there's the explanation for the facial print there. So it happens, 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.000 it continues to happen. I think you might get letters 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:13.640 on that one. But but we'll be all right. But 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:18.480 the carbon dating, yes, that is a key tool. But 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.800 but then there are other like more We're not gonna 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:22.080 spend a lot of time on these. But then you 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:26.440 have stuff like the the old Circus mermaid. Yeah, so 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.480 the monkey, the dead monkey to the the back half 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:32.760 of the fish, and like a cinnamon tail, right, and 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.880 then orangutan jaw. Yeah. I mean it's it's complete, it's 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.000 very creative, but it does it does correct me because 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.280 back in that day, though, how would you know, right 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.120 if it wasn't that circulating I don't know, early nineteenth 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.320 century or something. Um, you don't have the other nut, 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:50.960 you know, you don't have people that are well traveled. Um, 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.760 you may even not have wide access to books to 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.240 reference materials. So if that were to be displayed, then 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.760 you might think, wow, that creature is really out there. Yeah. 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:04.680 And as we've discussed before, fossils, the fossil record is incomplete, 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:07.880 and fossils alone do not tell us what the past 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:10.280 was like. And in fact, I mean we we cannot 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.000 know with any uh you know, strong degree of certainty 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.040 of what the past was like, what Brettist dark days 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:19.000 consisted of. We we make very educated guesses and and 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.120 and theorize what it was like. And we based those 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:24.800 theories on the fossils. We based it on on our 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:29.680 use of basically large family trees and filling in the blanks. 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:31.440 A lot of it just we just put a lot 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.240 of logic into it and a lot of deduction. It's 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.440 like solving a crime where you go in and you 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:39.599 look at a lot of evidence and you put it 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.400 together and try to form a complete picture of what happened. Right, 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:44.839 you're extrapolating to some degree. Right, So early on there 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:47.159 were though there were fewer tools there was there were, 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.880 especially if you're trying to build a family tree. Like ideally, 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.040 if you build a family tree, you want to just 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.479 continue building something that's already been created, but to build 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.960 one from stress from scratch, uh, there there's room for 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.719 a lot of air, So we can keep that in mind. 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:05.880 We talked about this too, and even the Dinosaur Sex podcast, 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.279 because we were trying to figure out whether what sort 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:13.520 of um equipment dinosaurs had um to reproduce and you 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:16.280 still have to extrapolate their right, we looked at alligators 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:18.760 and basically figured out that this was probably the best 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:21.400 logical conclusion in terms of reproduction. You have to look 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.080 at at modern examples of the modern descendants of dinosaurs 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.520 and sort of work backwards and and again, so so 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.440 little actually makes it into fossil into the fossil record 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:34.000 because it has to be covered in mud, it has 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:38.320 to undergo this fossilization process that does not happen to everything. 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.240 And then the more of a creature there there happens 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:43.960 to be, the more likely that creature is to wind 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.760 up in the fossil record. Whereas a like top tier 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:51.479 predator um of which there are fewer, very unlikely that 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:53.160 it will show up in the fossil record at all. 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:56.440 So we have our challenges, and that that makes for 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:01.400 more chiconry, I suppose out there in in the fossil world. 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.960 But in speaking of the incompleteness of the fossil record, 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:09.960 the other thing is that fossils themselves are You rarely 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.680 find a complete specimen. There are complete fossil specimens, and 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.839 they're great, they're very important, but they're not that common. 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.720 So if you see a guy on the train trying 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.920 to sell a complete fossil skeleton, that's a good there's 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.479 a good chance that that's a fake. Uh So, So 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.400 that's sort of a red flag there when people are 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.600 dealing with with fossils. Oh, well, this one's a complete 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:38.720 fossil uh uh skeleton of this uh, this long departed creature. Well, 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.200 let's take a closer to look, right. Yeah, and it's 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.840 very possible to you that that person went online and 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.160 looked up how to make a fake fossil, which I'm 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.560 not kidding. There's there's an article. It's like a wiki 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.799 article or something. So I mean, you know, it's pretty 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:55.200 it's obvious that this is stuff that's going on either 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.240 for someone's own enjoyment or to pull a hoax or 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.919 to make a quick buck. Yeah. Now you know you 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:02.839 get down with modern tools, you can get down and 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.440 look at at them and like look at the chemical analysis. 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.479 You can whip out a microscope uh uh. And and 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:10.280 also you can just look for other things like evidence 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:14.960 of sanding. Um. You can scratch uh scratch the actual 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.360 supposed fossil to see if there's wax or glue and 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:23.840 its constructor staining and uh. Of fakes. There are basically 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:27.440 three types of fossil fakes. There are, first, there are 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:31.920 those that contain no original fossil material um, such as shapes, 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.320 carved and rock. And then there are those that do 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.960 contain original fossil material but are entirely or partially altered 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.440 in order to give the appearance of a more complete specimen. Uh. 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.400 So an example this would be a sculpted, uh carved 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.440 skull from a fragment of limb bone. And then there 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:51.520 are Frankenstein specimens and these um uh these that are 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:55.360 true fossils, but they're artificially combined with from multiple individuals. 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:57.040 So you have a fossil, a little bit of fossil 0:07:57.200 --> 0:07:59.400 from creature A, a little bit from fossil from creature B. 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:01.880 You want to get your name out there and uh, 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:03.960 you know, and find your own dinosaurs, so you just 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:06.520 build your own out of the available parts. Yeah, d 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.320 I y dinosaur fossil. Yeah, which that was again, this 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:11.600 building your own dinosaur and trying to get named was 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.600 a little more common previously, but not it's not as 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:19.200 rare as you might think, even in today's world. Yeah. 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.040 And you know, I talked about a little bit um 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:23.800 that it's it was sort of like the wild West. 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.440 It was very much to the extent that there were 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.600 hostile groups of Native Americans around, hostile tribes that you 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:32.959 might have to contend with. Ye. Well, and that's the 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.160 fact that this was a burgeoning field right back in 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:37.120 the day, and that there are people who were competing 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.560 to try to get their names out ahead of someone 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.520 else and saying I've discovered this creature or that creature. Yeah, 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:47.240 and and the it was the field itself. They were 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.280 still learning how to do it. Uh, I mean, archaeology 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:54.480 and paleontology both were kind of evolving films, evolving fields 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:58.319 throughout the the wild West period. Well, bronze source is 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.080 a good example of that, right, because Epiporus is that 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:07.040 the real name that was the first fossil of that 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.200 was discovered. Then Bronosaurus was discovered and thought to be 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:15.959 a different subspecies, right, um, and so then they realized 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:18.720 later on that that that these were actually the same thing. Yeah. 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.320 That was uh, due to a man by the name 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:27.040 of Othaniel Charles Marsh, who I believe we're gonna get 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.440 to in just a little bit here. Yeah. Yeah, actually, yeah, 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:31.679 let's let's talk about and get into that. Let's talk 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:35.319 about Marsh all right. So you had Oathaniel Charles Marsh 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.520 and then you had his counterpart, Edward Danker Cope. All right, 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.959 these guys were somewhere in some respects both born to 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.959 wealthy US families, a lot of money in the family, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:49.679 but they were both fascinated from an early age by 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.480 natural sciences. What time period was again, this was this 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:59.080 was like you know, like late So you had Cope. Uh. 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.719 Cope was brilliant interpreter of fossils, all right, he was. 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:05.560 He was a hard worker, um Like during his life 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.840 he ended up publishing like more than four papers and 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:14.320 monographs on paleontology. Um. And he and he risked life 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.480 and limb for science. I mean he was he was. 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:21.880 He was out there, you know, risking attack from from 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:25.880 hostile tribes, uh and uh in life and limb to 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.880 to get these these fossils. But he was also really arrogant. Uh. 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:32.760 He was really hot tempered, and this would become a 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.160 defining part of who he was. Marsh On the other hand, 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.280 Marsha spent his entire career at Yale University, where he's 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.640 Professor of Paleontology and curator of the Peabody Museum in 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.720 Natural History. Now, he wasn't as uh as bright as Cope. 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.080 Perhaps that's the or at least that's that's what some 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.040 of the historians argue that he he maybe didn't have 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.560 the natural intellectual gift for it, but he but what 0:10:56.679 --> 0:11:00.240 he lacked he made up for in uh is just 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.679 just being a ruthless and masterful organizer. And he hit 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:05.840 a real knack for the politics of the system too. 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:08.160 But but again, he was this This guy was not 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:09.720 just like, oh, I'm going to make some money off 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.360 of fossils. No, he was He was legitimately obsessed and 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:17.520 interested in just in awe of of of these these 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:19.680 wondrous relic of the past people we're finding in the 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:21.600 in the earth. And tell me if I'm wrong on this, 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.080 if I've got it backwards. But is it. Marsh who 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:29.520 looked at Cops one of Cope's assemblage of fossil parts, 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:32.800 pointed out that the head was on the opposite side 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.480 of the vertebrae. Yeah. Now, these two and I mean 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:37.600 this was like and these are fighting words, right, like 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.040 it's almost like dueling words. This was this was the 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.960 incident that really kicked things off because they started off 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.720 they kind of knew each other a little bit. You know, paleontology, 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:48.679 especially in those days, was kind of a small tent, 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.319 so so these two they knew who they each other were. 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.120 But then Cope went on this expedition to Kansas and 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:59.120 he lined up the fossils of an elasmosairos and published 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:03.240 a paper about it. All right, but Cope had placed 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.120 the head on the wrong end, which sounds, you know, laughable, 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:10.360 but again, this is an earlier age of paleontology piecing 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:12.680 these things together. But so he placed the head on 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.959 the wrong end um on the tail of the of 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:21.479 the spine. And when he found out, uh, Cope immediately 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:23.680 begin you know, he realized he made a mistake, and 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.800 he starts buying back all the papers that published his 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:31.000 his incorrect illustration, you know, because he was a prideful 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:33.880 dude and he made this error, and so and again, 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:35.960 how many how many copies of this could have possibly 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:37.679 been out there? You know? Yeah, I know, I mean 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.000 it's self publishing, right or even like big publishing houses. 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.040 We're talking maybe like I don't know, fifty or something. Yeah, 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:45.040 it's not like the Internet where once you pushed publish, 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.360 it's out there somewhere. Yeah. And he's probably like, all 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:52.120 my family members, give me back those copies right now. Yeah. So, so, yeah, 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:55.199 he did this. But then marsh like really started pointing 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.920 the figure and finger and he just seemed really to 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.199 delight in this as well, um, you know, saying that 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.480 saying that Cope made made made made this error, and 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:09.920 that he had and that you know that he had 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.160 always tried to cover up for his own mistakes. And 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:16.040 so it's yeah, and so what would follow It would 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.959 be two decades of feuding between these two um and 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.680 during this time, and it's it's it's interesting because this 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.680 feud because on one hand, this feud ended up fueling 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:30.120 a lot of important discoveries in paleontology, well, right, because 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.000 they were both racing to the finish line, right right. 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.280 It became a race who could just who could discover 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.400 the most of fossils, who could discuss who could have 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.240 name that the most specimens and uh and wind up 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:44.760 as the bigger name in the history books. So so yeah, 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.679 on one hand, it's fueling a lot of a lot 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:50.920 of discovery. But on the other hand, uh Cope winds 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.240 up rushing and making more careless errors, such as the 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:58.959 Bronosaurus um uh Apodosaurus incident that we we just mentioned, 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.600 where he basedly in eighteen seventy seven, he um he 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.960 found the the apodosaurus and publishes uh um you know, 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:12.680 information on that, and then he hastily named and described 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.080 another one the Bronosaurus based on incomplete materials. We'd later 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:18.520 find out that this was the same species. That's why 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.880 then we revert from again from bronosaurs to a potosaurus 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:25.000 because when he first discovered he was named apodosars, right, 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.080 And this is all just the best his front of 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:29.600 me you know which, Yeah, I mean, I do think 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.440 it's the classic front of me example. Yeah, I get 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:34.440 a front of me is such a weird term. I mean, 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:38.080 these guys, really there's so much well, yes, but you know, 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:41.240 vinegar in this relationship. There's a lot of vinegar. It's 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:44.320 very acidic. But you know, surely, like he said, it's 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:46.760 a small group. And I'm sure that they were civil 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:51.080 to each other, but their hatred for each other definitely fueled. 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:53.400 They were civil for a while, but like at these 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.280 twenty years of feuding and and like I said, cope, 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.040 he made some mistakes. You get in a hurry and 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.040 make some careless airs. Marsh was more careful in his work, 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.200 but he was all he was more ready to resort 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:09.520 to result to resort to bribery or bullying um in 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.720 in the pursuit of these specimens. Uh. And also they 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.080 were also weren't they also driving out the price because 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.800 before that they were actually getting the fossils for freight, 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.040 right um mostly, But then when they started competing against 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:24.840 each other, they were buying them off of people, and 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.600 other people couldn't compete because they couldn't spend that much 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:32.840 money on getting those fossils. And and they just continue 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:35.440 to fight in the like first in the in the 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:37.840 in the scientific papers, but even in the news. It 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.880 carries over the newspapers because every time one of them, 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.560 you know, make some claim or publishes a paper, the 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:46.160 other ones there to just you know, tear it apart 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.480 and make all sorts of nasty, potentially libelous comments about 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:53.080 about what they're doing their work, you know, just tearing 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:57.440 them to ribbons. Also, each scientist had hired a crew 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.480 field crew to help them unearthed and ship back these fossils, 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.080 right and the rival crews were known to spy in 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.960 each other to dynamite their own and each other's secret 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.280 locations to keep their opponents from digging there, and occasionally 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.920 they'd steal other they steal each other's fossils um and 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:16.200 uh and and and all the time, you know, they're 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:19.960 they're working in harsh conditions there the Native American tribes 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:21.880 are are out there and aren't too happy about it, 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.560 I mean with good reason of him. Yeah yeah, I 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.280 mean Marsh particular was known to uh. I read an 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:32.240 account of where he uh he was really interested by 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:34.880 the way that one particular tribe would put their dead 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:37.720 up on these, uh, the stilted platforms, and he was like, 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:39.640 let's go take a look at those skulls. So they 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:41.400 just you know, him and his career, just go and 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.400 start digging around in the bones. And I liked it. 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.440 When we were discussing it before earlier, you were talking 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:49.240 about how like if they had made a movie out 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:51.360 of it would probably be more in the spirit of 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:55.280 their will be blood. Yeah, yeah, because because it's that 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.040 level of just like all these guys are so unhappy 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.400 and nasty to each other. It's they just his ruble 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:04.679 people and so calculating. Yeah. Um. And it reminds me 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:08.000 too of the Baringer hoax, because it's in the same 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.480 sort of spirit. It's perhaps not as um as involved 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.080 as this. In fact, were you going to talk about 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.600 like the last sort of kicking the teeth? Oh you 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.400 mean with the skull Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was yeah. 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.720 So again twenty years of feuding. By the end of it, 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:28.439 both of them are financially ruined, um, because they end 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.199 up financing their own expeditions because to get ahead, got 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:32.760 to get ahead, and like, oh I gotta put my 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.880 own money into it. Fine. Eventually Cope dies, he dies 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:39.000 in after he's just you know, he's had to like 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.199 sell part of his fossil collection just against me. But 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.919 he has his skull donated to science so that his 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.040 brain can be measured, um, and he's he's a big 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:51.399 hope here is that his brain will be found larger 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:56.520 than that of Marsh. But Marsh Marsh didn't actually pony 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.840 after this challenge, which is of course silly anyway, because 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:01.520 the size of brain doesn't really have anything to do 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.520 with with how smart the individual, right right right, which 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.200 they didn't know them, but um, but the arrogance, the 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:10.280 sheer arrogance, and it's like that's your defining thing. It's 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:14.000 like like, clearly these guys were like the hatred that 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.159 they have for each other becomes more important than the science, 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.119 even though they both contributed a lot to science and 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:23.080 we're both scientifically great men, even if they were both 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:30.640 kind of jerks. This presentation is brought to you by 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:37.880 Intel sponsors of tomorrow. And that does seem to be 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.400 a theme like the jerk thing, Like if you're a jerk, 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:44.280 you will suffer in this particular scenario. And that's when 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.960 that's when we'll turn and look at Barringer hoax or 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:52.960 Barringer hoax. And this is Dr Johan Barthelomew Adam Berenger 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:56.239 or Barner. I'm just gonna say five different ways. Um. 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:59.159 He was professor and the dean of medicine University of 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.520 Horsebrook in Germany in the seventeen hundreds, and he collected 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:05.520 fossils and UM. He wasn't an expert, but he was 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.960 certainly very interested in the in the burgeoning field. UM. 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.679 But one day he was completely thunderstruck when students of 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:16.520 his delivered hundreds of carvings, and over time, I think 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:20.320 it was numbered like in the two thousands. UM. And 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:24.639 these carvings, they they figured they had all sorts of animals. Um. 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.600 There was one that had frogs mating, which should have 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:31.720 raised the red flag. Um. Birds flying. Some of the 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:35.439 rocks had birds flying birds. Would a flying bird become fossil? 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:37.399 As you know? Yeah, I know, I mean in the 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.359 act of flag. Yeah, um. And then some of the 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:46.120 rocks had Syrian, Hebrew, and Babylonian inscriptions, and Baringer came 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:48.879 to believe that these stones were created by God as 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.119 a test of human faith, and he really struggled. Or 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.679 possibly just for God's pleasure, that was another one. That's right, 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:56.960 God was either trying to teach us, or maybe he 0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:58.520 was just doing it for fun. He's got he can 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:00.600 do what he wants, he can write words all over. 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:04.280 He didn't come to this conclusion right away, and he 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:07.879 actually started with the more logical conclusions, like perhaps this 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:11.920 could have been like an ancient society that um carved 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.160 these things. And then he started to think that they 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:19.240 were actual, you know, uh, possible fossil records. And then 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.560 you know, as they became more and more elaborate, especially 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:25.040 with the Hebrew running song, that's when he began to 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:29.600 link it with the existence of of um, some sort 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:33.560 of like godlike material um that was brought down right 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.400 when when when really it was just he was kind 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:40.200 of a pompous dude, and some of his his co 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.280 workers decided to mess with him. Yeah, two of his colleagues. 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.280 They spent all of this time. Oh this was another 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:48.440 reason why he thought that it couldn't have been anything 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.080 but but God, because he thought, how who would go 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:55.280 to the trouble of carving and polishing two thousand stones? Well, 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.480 two colleagues that hit your guts, that's um. They actually 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.440 planned them for for Bearinger students to find and then 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:06.080 delivered to Bearinger. Um because they said, because Baringer was 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.600 so arrogant and despised them all. And this was j 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:16.280 j Ignantes Roderick and yourge von Eckhart. So Eckhart and 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:20.000 Roderick sounds like a musical cool group, but yes, um. 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.879 So they actually did try to put a quasi stop 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:26.800 to it because they found out that Benger was about 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:29.679 to publish a book about these stones, which would have 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:34.439 made him the laughing stock. Yeah, I mean it was 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:37.119 so excited about this, right, But so they started to 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:40.560 we've gone too far. Yeah, we've gone too far. You 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:42.120 need to kill this. This guy is about to ruin 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.440 his career. Uh. So they started saying, okay, well, we 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:48.080 don't actually think there's a real fossils and spreading rumors, 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:49.800 and he thought they were just trying to discredit him 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:51.320 at that point he's like, He's like, though they were 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:54.159